Arts employee of British Council detained in Iran

Aras Amiri, a London-based employee of the British Council, is being held in Iran by the country’s Intelligence Ministry and is currently being denied legal aid, Center for Human Rights in Iran reports. Arriving in Tehran on 8 March, Amiri travelled to Amol (northern Iran) to visit her grandmother in hospital. She returned to Tehran on 14 March and was arrested while on the way to the airport. Amiri’s cousin Mohsen Omrani has said, ‘The authorities have only said that she was arrested on the charge of ‘assembly and collusion against national security’ but they haven’t said on what basis and she hasn’t been allowed to meet her lawyer’. A graduate student who works for the British Council, Amiri organised film and theatre festivals for young Iranian artists and operated with official invitations and permission from Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. She is currently being held in Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran, a facility controlled by the Intelligence Ministry. Her family made news of her arrest public on 1 May and are awaiting developments.